Fan Jinghua: In One Room

　　　In One Room

　　　　　　　　A cold girl’ll kill you
　　　　　　　　In a darkened room
　　　　　　　　　　　---The Doors

Cars hissing by outside in the pattering rain,
Your face blankly white and eyes darkly cold,
You are two arms’ reach away at the edge of the dusk.
The room is horrifyingly vast, but we, buried in our own doing,
Feel so expansive in here, two to hold a universe, like two thumbtacks
Pinning a piece of white paper unto an airy wall,
On which two lovers float, clinging to each other under one umbrella.

In this reliably mute room, we sit, still and serene, watching
From different ends at Time which licks its foggy lips on the wall,
Drooling toward a dwarf potted plant on the windowsill.
A smile would well and swell up from the corners of your mouth
When the sounds not supposed to be heard pass by your ears.
When confined together we are what we were before we met;
With everything said as if unsaid, we are locked in love.
　　　　　　　　　　　　April 21, 2008 (to KC)

　　　　同房幽闭

　　　　　　　　一个冷漠女孩将会杀死你
　　　　　　　　在一个幽暗的房间
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　——大门乐队
　　　　　　　　
啪啪的雨声中汽车刺溜溜地驶过外面，
灯下的脸苍白，眼睛幽幽的冷，
你在两臂之外犹在黄昏的边际。
这个小小的房间空旷得令人恐慌，但两个人的存在
便膨胀到足以占据宇宙，这张白纸，一堵悬于半空的墙，
我们是两只图钉，各自埋头在桌前；
纸上，走过两个恋人，依偎在一把伞下，漂泊的家。

我们坐在这儿，安宁而无虞，
这小小的立方宇宙，沉默、虚空得毫无成见；
窗楣上，时间舔着嘴唇，它的口水一滴滴滴进窗脚下的盆栽。
当不想被听见的声音从细雨滤进了你的耳朵，
一丝无名的笑从你的嘴角涌起、稍纵即逝。
当你我幽闭一起，我们成为了我们原本的自己；
无论一切说了还是没说，这就是一首情歌。
　　　　　　　　　　　2008年4月21日、26日

Note: The Chinese title of this poem literally means "confined in the same room" while 同房 (the same room) has two other meanings: one being "from the same branch of a family," one being a euphemism for "(a couple) sleeping together".